A Masterpiece!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I was intrigued when I heard about Andy Warhol producing 'Blood for Dracula,' and 'Flesh for Frankenstein.' I planned on watching both of them, starting with 'Blood for Dracula.' This movie is just very entertaining, strange, and artistic. The story is like no other Dracula film. With Udo Kier as Dracula this was bound to be good for me. I first saw Udo in Gus Van Sant's 'My Own Private Idaho,' (which many people probably had the same experience as me.) I thought he was good at first sight. Then I watched an interview with director Gus Van Sant, where he was talking about first seeing Udo in 'Flesh for Frankenstein,' and 'Blood for Dracula.' Naturally, I had to see them. It was exciting to know that this movie existed. So this was interesting. I don't think it was great, I don't think it could've been better, it's just good the way it is. You just kind of have to see it yourself.

Filmed after "Flesh of Frankenstein" (1973), by the same director, Paul Morrissey, and much of same cast and crew, as well as, again, being advertised as produced by pop-art celebrity Andy Warhol, "Blood for Dracula" is only slightly amusing as a vampire burlesque, but is of more interest for its sexual and political allegory.As comedy, I prefer the Dracula-related parodies "The Dance of the Vampires," a.k.a. "The Fearless Vampire Killers" (1967), directed by Roman Polanski, who has a cameo in this film's tavern scene, and "Love at First Bite" (1979). Some of "Blood for Dracula" is funny, or at least absurd. I like the opening mirror scene where Dracula dyes his hair black. In Bram Stoker's novel, the Count's hair also changed from white to black, but there was no indication that he dyed it that way. And there certainly was no reason for him, as in this film, to do so before a mirror, which, of course, doesn't cast his reflection. This Count's vegan dietary restrictions, his distaste for Italian food, the actors' stilted performances and accents that are all over the place also add to the campiness. (What neorealist filmmaker Vittorio De Sica is doing among the cast in this assuredly non-realist film, I don't know.) The blood vomiting and the Grand Guignol finale are grotesquely over the top, and the nudity and sex scenes place the production firmly within the exploitation genre. Overall, the film's production values are good, the musical score is pleasant, and the cinematography has some standout moments, including Dracula's tracking close-up shot from a wheelchair.Although this Dracula is, unfortunately I think, part of the trend that gained momentum in the 1970s for sympathetic vampires, as well as being in the suave Count tradition of Bela Lugosi, he's not as wimpy as Hammer's vampires. Udo Kier's Dracula is sickly, uses a wheelchair and isn't especially physically strong, but, unlike Hammer's vamps, he doesn't roll over and die from a bit of daylight or the sight of a cross. His main weakness here is his restriction to the blood of virgins, which is proving more difficult in the sexually-promiscuous modern age, hence his feeble condition. "Blood for Dracula" isn't really an adaptation of Stoker's novel, but this bit regarding virgin blood does indirectly rework one of the central themes from the book. As many have claimed, Stoker's "Dracula" is subtextually about venereal disease (especially, syphilis, which may've affected Stoker himself). The vampire represented the carrier of VD, who polluted the blood and sexual purity of Englishwomen. "Blood of Dracula" reverses this, with Dracula being infected by the impurity of the blood of sexually-active female victims. His move to Italy also retains a bit of the book's invasion xenophobia, and it's humorously ironic because it's at the heart of Roman Catholicism, which, it turns out, is less concerned with chastity than is the Count.Meanwhile, the character who would be expected to be the traditional hero is a rapacious communist, the Italian family's handyman, who also regularly has sex, consensual or not, with the two incestuous sisters of the family. He rails against Dracula's aristocracy and has a hammer and sickle painted on his room's wall. The pun of him having an axe to grind with the aristocratic Count, as he literally chases Dracula while wielding an axe is one of the film's best gags.(Mirror Note: I already mentioned the amusingly-absurd through-the-mirror shot in the opening scene. There's also another mirror shot where one of the sisters discovers to her horror that Dracula casts no reflections.)

"Blood for Dracula" clearly has its fans, hence its relatively high IMDb rating (for a horror movie) and the many positive comments describing it as a clever satire.Alas, I would consider it a poor satire -- and a smug Z-movie that's more concerned with being "subversive" and "shocking" than telling a decent story with good characters. Some reviewers claim it's a masterpiece of camp, but somehow I don't see it as camp. Adam West's Batman is camp, while this thing is far more...what's the word? Blargh, that's it. Not camp, but blargh.Not that "Blood for Dracula" doesn't have a few good points. The location filming (I presume actually in Italy) is gorgeous, and once in a while, the script serves up a clever line or a glimmer of proper characterization. But none of the good parts last. About 90% of the film's running time consists of repetitive nude scenes, boring exposition, casual sexism, and Dracula writhing while coughing up blood. Suddenly, "Dracula AD 1972" doesn't look so bad!Bizarrely, two great directors appear in cameo roles: Roman Polanski as a local rube who sasses Dracula's incredibly annoying servant (a very enjoyable moment), and Vittorio De Sica as a hammy patriarch with florid speech patterns. It says something awful about the movie that these two cinema giants, chiefly known for their skills behind the camera, are in fact the best actors in the whole thing! Try not to compare their relative naturalism to Arno Juerging and Maxime de la Falaise, who have much bigger roles but can't act their way out of a wet paper bag.As for Udo Kier as Dracula -- gosh, what can I say. He looks pale and depressed the whole time, as he frets and longs for a taste of "wurgin" (as in, virgin) blood. And his dialogue consists of very non-Dracula observations, such as "it's very important for a girl to study homemaking." Or something like that. Move over, Bram Stoker, your brilliant undead aristocrat had been replaced by a pallid wimp who loses a fight to a communist farmhand. (If only I could purge that image from my memory!)Of course, the film's fans will tell you that its awfulness is all deliberate. Like Andy Warhol stacking his soup cans, the people who made this travesty were playing a brilliant joke on us all, and we're just too dumb to figure it out! Silly us, expecting things like a compelling plot and decent acting. We're all so bourgeois and unimaginative, we just don't deserve a great movie like this.Okay, rant over. To be honest, I didn't totally hate this thing, I was just...reduced to a state of shock and wonderment by it all. Could such a movie actually exist? And could people actually consider it good? Well, well. What a wide and weird and wonderful world we live in. But you'll forgive me if I prefer Horror of Dracula -- it's due entirely to my middle-class lack of bad taste!

Another movie that i was banned to see along with flesh for Frankenstein back in 1974.This the first Dracula movie that i ever saw where the Count is in search of a pure virgin,daylight don't bother him,dosen't sleep in his coffin,drink blood from the floor,if i'am correct that was some kind of blood discharge after a virgin is being broken in..very sick.once again overacting on Udo and his co-helper,the eyes,just like flesh for Frankenstein.and of all Dracula movies,this is the first time i see Dracula get all chopped up and brutally helpless.Udo play Dracula fine but his crying talk was childish.this is one Dracula mixing it up and looking for Cinderella before the big bad wolf get her..i gave it 8 stars because it was different,sexy,sick and for adult only.